Kenneth Clark, Lord Clark of Saltwood

The Gallery’s youngest ever Director, Kenneth Clark went on to be a celebrated broadcaster and continues to be revered as an art historian today.

Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was born on 13 July 1903, the son of a wealthy Scottish businessman. His artistic inclinations led him initially to work for Bernard Berenson at Villa I Tatti near Florence.

He subsequently became Keeper of Fine Art at the Ashmolean Museum, before accepting the directorship of the National Gallery in January 1934 at the age of 30. He remained Director until the end of 1945.

Clark was celebrated for his innovative stewardship of the Gallery during wartime, his prolific publications, and his charismatic broadcasting style in later life. All of this contributed to his position as a scholar of international renown. Knighted in 1938, he was created Lord Clark of Saltwood in 1969.

Clark died on 21 May 1983. He remains one of the most celebrated art historians of the 20th century.

Image above: Kenneth Clark filming 'Civilisation' © BBC

Selected acquisitions

Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns)

Hieronymus Bosch

Christ stares calmly out at us from the heart of this picture, his serenity a vivid contrast to the brutality of his tormentors. At the back are two soldiers, one about to force the crown of thorns onto Christ’s head. In front two men kneel in mock homage; one seems about to tear off Christ’s rob...

Room 27

Saint Francis and the Poor Knight, and Francis's Vision

Sassetta

According to his biography, the young Saint Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy merchant, gave his expensive clothes to a poor knight. The next night God sent him a vision of a great palace, and promised it to him and his soldiers (that is, the army of Franciscan friars he was to found). This...

Gallery F

Saint Francis renounces his Earthly Father

Sassetta

Under the arches of a pink arcade, Bishop Guido of Assisi wraps his cloak around the naked Saint Francis of Assisi. The saint’s discarded boots, shirt and hose lie in a heap on the floor. To the left, Francis’s father, enraged by his son’s rejection of their wealthy lifestyle, has snatched up the...

Gallery F

Saint Francis before Pope Honorius III

Sassetta

In a vaulted green hall, Pope Honorious III blesses Saint Francis of Assisi, watched by assembled cardinals and various others. This is the third of a series of eight panels depicting episodes from Saint Francis’s life. They were part of a sumptuous double-sided altarpiece Sassetta made for the...

Not on display

The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis

Sassetta

Saint Francis of Assisi kneels in a rocky landscape, hands raised in prayer, gazing up at a vision of Christ floating in the sky. Christ has the six wings of a seraphim and his arms are extended as if on the Cross. Rays from Christ’s stigmata – the wounds he received at the Crucifixion – impress...

Gallery F

Saint Francis before the Sultan

Sassetta

Saint Francis of Assisi, eager to defend his faith through martyrdom, went to Syria to preach to its Muslim population around 1219, at the time of the Fifth Crusade (one of a series of invasions of Muslim countries by Christian armies attempting to recapture the Holy Land). He was captured and ta...

Gallery F

The Wolf of Gubbio

Sassetta

In around 1220, Saint Francis of Assisi was living in Gubbio, Umbria. When a ferocious wolf began attacking livestock and people, Francis rebuked it, and tamed the animal by making the sign of the cross. He promised that, if it stopped terrorising the city, it would be forgiven and cared for. The...

Gallery F

The Funeral of Saint Francis

Sassetta

Saint Francis of Assisi died on 4 October 1226, surrounded by his friars at the chapel of the Portiuncula, outside Assisi. Rather than in a tiny chapel, here the saint lies on a bier in front of the altar of a large pink and blue church, surrounded by friars, church officials and other witnesses....

Gallery F

Madame Moitessier

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Wearing her finest clothes and jewellery, Madame Moitessier gazes majestically at us. She is the embodiment of luxury and style during the Second Empire, which saw the restoration of the French imperial throne and the extravagant display of wealth. Her distinctive pose is based upon a Roman wall...

Room 45

The Watering Place

Peter Paul Rubens

A young milkmaid with a brass pitcher on her head and a bucket in her hand leads her herd of cattle away for milking. The rising sun reflects in a pool and reaches through the trees to catch the sleek white hides of some of the cows. It’s an idyllic, rustic scene, yet there is energy: people are...

Room 34

Saskia van Uylenburgh in Arcadian Costume

Rembrandt

Saskia van Uylenburgh, the daughter of a burgomaster of Leeuwarden in Friesland, was Rembrandt’s first wife. Here, she is 23 years old; they have been married for a year. She is dressed as Flora, the Roman goddess of spring and fertility.Her gorgeous gown is a seventeenth-century version of Renai...

Room 22

Mrs Oswald

Johann Zoffany

Zoffany has portrayed Mary Oswald at the age of about 50. Probably born in Kingston, Jamaica, she was the only child of Alexander Ramsay, a Glasgow-born merchant who settled in Jamaica, acquiring plantations there and in the South American colonies. In 1750, she married Richard Oswald, a Scottish...

Room 34

The Virgin and Child ('The Madonna with the Iris')

Workshop of Albrecht Dürer

The Virgin Mary breastfeeds the infant Christ in a walled garden surrounded by flowers. God the Father, a small figure radiating light, appears in the sky above. The image of the Virgin and Christ Child in a garden was derived from the poetic imagery of the Song of Solomon, a book of the Old Test...

Not on display

The Adoration of the Golden Calf

Nicolas Poussin

In this scene from the Book of Exodus, a large gathering of Israelites worship a life-size statue of a golden calf, or what is actually a bull, which represents the Egyptian bull-god Apis. They have decided to worship a different, pagan god while their leader Moses has been away on Mount Sinai co...

Room 31

A Horse frightened by Lightning

Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault

Géricault was a keen horseman, and his passion for horses was matched by his expert understanding of their anatomy. In 1813 he produced a number of oil studies and finished paintings, possibly including this one, of horses at the Imperial stables at Versailles. These paintings are characterised b...

Not on display

The Graham Children

William Hogarth

These are the four Graham children. Their father was Royal Apothecary to George I and George II. Thomas, in his gilded baby carriage adorned with a bird, had already died when Hogarth was working on the picture. The crossed carnations (funeral flowers) beside him are a tender reminder of death. A...

Room 34

Saint Jerome and the Lion: Predella Panel

Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop

Saint Jerome sits in the wilderness, carefully removing a thorn from the paw of a very endearing lion – it went on to be his companion. This was a popular subject in medieval art, although Jerome is usually just shown with the lion as a pet, rather than actually treating it.This is one of five sc...

Not on display

Portrait of a Lady

Caspar Netscher

A young woman sits on a stone bench in a garden. She leans on a plinth as if trying to be at ease but her bodice, stiffened with whalebone, forbids her to relax. She sits upright, her eyes alert as if expecting someone. Who she might be expecting remains a mystery, since we don't know her identit...

Not on display

Saint Jerome in a Rocky Landscape

Workshop of Joachim Patinir

This small picture shows two episodes from the life of Saint Jerome. At the front, the saint sits under a lean-to shelter and removes a large thorn from a lion’s paw. In gratitude the lion remained with him in the wilderness and after he went back to monastic life. On a rocky platform behind, the...

Not on display

The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs

Piero di Cosimo

The brutal fight between the Lapiths and the centaurs, as described by the first-century Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, is displayed on this panel. The story starts with the wedding feast of Pirithous, King of the Lapiths. During the celebrations, the centaur Eurytion, drunk and possessed...

Not on display